Dead and Content
by onemoremistake
Summary: When she imagined seeing Sam again, it was somewhere sinister; definitely not in a swanky hotel with a bad tempered spirit causing her path to cross with the youngest Winchester's a lot more than she'd like. Part one in the Words Against Skies series.
1. Just a little

**A/N:** This fic is part one of an AU series I'm working on called Words Against Skies (see next break below). It involves the concept of Sam Winchester and Jo Harvelle working as a hunting team post 3x11: Mystery Spot. It's sketchy, and angsty, and rough, but bear with me here, would ya'? Pretty please with Jensen and Jared on top? _Oh dear god_. Santa, I know what I want for Christmas this year…

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go throw things over this terrible dilemma.

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><p>part one, words against skies<p>

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><p><em>and these songs that we sing <em>/ _do they mean anything_

Charlotte Gainsbourg.

Jo Harvelle isn't your average, all American girl.

Sure, she _looks_ like your average, all American girl… But, she isn't.

She can't remember a time that she didn't know that _monsters_ are more than just stories made to scare people. When she was five, her daddy joked with her to watch out for the boogieman beneath her bed. She slept with a knife under her pillow and waited for the chance to go at its throat.

The first time she broke a bone wasn't because of the usual kid stuff. Didn't fall out of a tree, or get pinned in a fight; wasn't even doing anything she wasn't supposed to. Naw, her arm was cracked in two different places because a possessed Hunter walked into a bar and decided to take it out on her.

She rammed a knife through his chest so violent, they couldn't even get the blade out before the funeral.

Hunting _monsters_ is her specialty, and when she's got their blood drippin' all down her skin, it makes her smile, just a little…

So yeah, Jo Harvelle isn't your average, all American girl. And if you tell her otherwise, Jo Harvelle will not hesitate to aim a shotgun cocked and fully loaded at your face.


	2. Pleasent in her pickup

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural.

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><p><em>before you got afraid<em> / _I wish that you would've stayed that way_

Charlotte Gainsbourg.

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><p>One year, seven months, two weeks, six days, five hours, seventeen minutes and, at last count, twenty-five seconds since Jo has been on her own.<p>

The moment she stopped sniveling like a little girl in the field behind the Roadhouse after learning the truth about Winchesters, she packed a bag, gathered the rest of her poker money, and hit the road without looking back.

She heard the news about Ash through the grapevine; took her anger and grief out on a rogue Nymph causing mischief in Rushville instead of goin' to the funeral.

She heard the news about Dean straight from her mother's mouth; ended the phone call and got so drunk she couldn't remember where the bloody knuckles on her left hand came from in the morning.

She heard the news about Sam from Dennis O'Callaghan, an old family friend; felt a little sharp pang at the boy's name and memories of _my daddy shot your daddy in the head_ before she took a deep breath and said she'd knock a whole lot of sense into that thick skull of Sam's if she ever saw him again.

Over the weeks, she's stumbled upon the rumors. About the Devil's Gates being broken all over and demons gettin' out left and right. How when that classic, shiny black car known 'round the country rolls up, it means death. She's even heard about the way _monsters_ are gettin' spooked by something just beyond the horizon.

Instead of three knives constantly on her, she wears five.

Today's no exception; walks into some backwater diner in the middle of Georgia with her head held high and that Hunter Swagger to her step.

She know, seriously, _she knows_ she's not the best at this, and that she's got a long fucking way to go, but she's trying her damned hardest and that quivery-edged-constantly-on-alert gait has worked its way into her footfalls.

"Table for one?" some perky little waitress with too much red lipstick and big, bright hair grins at her when she stops at the _please wait to be seated_ podium.

Eyes running over every face in every booth, Jo nods. "Yeah, one." It's been lone wolf style for a while, and by now, she's used to it. Got over missin' company a long time ago.

"Right this way," the waitress says, a little bounce in her step and Jo wonders how the hell she can be so chipper. Jo's been the one pickin' the broken glass off the floor before, and the only attitude it ever gave her was a bitchy one.

_Guess everyone gets along differently…_ A shake of her head and Jo's trailing behind the waitress in an easy manner; scoped out enough to know there's no immediate threat, yet still vigilant around the edges. Ever since Duluth, she's been cautious as a timid rabbit running from a hungry fox.

The vinyl rubs against the bare of Jo's thighs– it's June, and it's _hot_ and someone can just fucking bite her if they've got a problem with a hunter wearing Daisy Dukes– when she sits in her assigned booth. Grabs out a menu from between the napkin dispenser and salt shaker, points to the nearest thing before the waitress even gets a real chance to introduce herself or anything.

"Oh," is all Jo's server says in response; takes the menu and tucks it under her arm. "…Do ya' want anythin' to drink, darlin'?"

"Coffee," Jo says. "Black."

When she's left to herself, Jo takes the free moment to pull out the map she has stowed away in her back pocket. Usually it sits pleasant in her pickup, tucked into the glove department along with salt, holy water, and a handgun. Today though, she's makin' a special exception to bring the ink/coffee stained paper into daylight.

Her jobs have been runnin' slow for a little while, figures it's because _monsters_ aren't all that happy with the overwhelming heat either. Then again, this Hell on Earth could be their doing and they're just sittin' back to enjoy the show… Jo shakes her head, eyes on the map because she's gotta find an Active Zone soon before this empty road and seedy motel with no action spell kills her.

There's some promise in Nevada, little blips of demonic activity, but she can bet it's a lot fucking hotter there than here, and Jo's not really one to be masochistic. Well, she is when it comes to Winchesters, but like her pride will let her admit that out loud.

"So that's a no," she says to herself, flips the map over and tours around the scenic routes in wonder of a case.

There's barely anything, and for a moment she wonders if maybe her research skills are hindering to be this short on something to hunt in such a chaos filled time. Just last week, Dennis called her about another gate gettin' blown open.

_Damn demons_, she thinks to herself dryly, wants to blame everything on them.

_My daddy shot your daddy in the head_ and she thanks a God she kinda-sorta believes in when her food arrives.

It's two in the afternoon and she's got a plate of pancakes and bacon. But that's kind of whatever, because anymore she doesn't taste the food or the caffeine or the alcohol, just shoves it down and waits for the impending stomach ache.

"Can I get ya' anything else, darlin'?" the waitress asks, her apron a little lopsided on her round hips from shuffling over with a tray.

"Naw," Jo smiles, laidback, easy like she is with clients. "I'm good, thank you." Takes a sip of her coffee and _mmm_'s appropriately to ease minds.

The waitress leaves her to the food and map with a nod and grin, giving a wane glance like she wants to be of more help. Jo thinks it's a bit nice to know there's still decent people, before snatching a bite of bacon and staring back down at lines of red felt marker and blotted ink.

She's deciding between Tampa and Chillicothe when her cell rings. Some battered Envy that she replaced the old one with after Philly. "Hello?" Jo asks the moment the _answer_ button is pressed.

"Hey there, Jo-glow," is the answering voice; muted laughter of a bar in the background and Jo can almost smell the cigarette smoke of Dennis's old hunting jacket. "How's it hanging, girly?"

"All right," she says, good-naturedly. "How about you?"

Dennis snorts. "Busy, as usual… Which is actually why I called."

"Need me to save your ass again?" Jo taunts playfully. She remembers a case back in Salt Lake City where he'd been holding himself together with Ace bandages and called her for backup; it was her first black dog and it chased her into a tree for hours until she finally got her wits and stabbed the thing in the throat with a branch before blasting it to kingdom come.

"Naw," Dennis chuckles, brings her back to the present. "It's not me that needs the savin' this time, girly… Ya' see, I promised an old friend some help out in Tinsel Town, but I've kind of hit a dilemma in the latest case I'm on right now. Ghouls are a lot stronger than I remembered… Anyways, this old friend in the city of glitz and glam, she's kind of desperate. Has this old hotel she inherited from the family that she's just got started up and runnin' and it's got some spirit activity on the unopened floors… I was wondering if you could help a guy out and take a look for me?"

"I don't know," Jo murmurs, tallies the drive in her head and how much cash she's got from bets and ripoffs for gas and supplies. "That's pretty far, Dennis."

"Aw, come on Jo-glow. An old man like me can only do so much at once! I've phoned a few friends, but none of 'em have gotten back to me…"

A paused silence between the two and then Jo sighs, because hell, like she really has anything better to do? "Alright," she says, signing her fate.

Dennis gives a thrilled _sweet_ and promises he'll text her the directions for the case, even though Dennis is about as good with directions as he is at keeping his beer down, which means not good at all. Jo rolls her eyes and gives a short goodbye before hanging up; shells some money out on the table, way too much and writes a little _keep the change_ on her napkin in syrup.

When she's in the parking lot, Jo chances a glance through the diner's window to catch her waitress smiling from ear to ear.

Jo chuckles and hops into the cab of the old pickup she bartered off of Ash before she left home; backs out of the lot and listens to the chorus of _Dream On_ fill the space around her as Dennis's message patches through.

One hand on the wheel as she drives along a forest surrounded road, she looks at her phone's screen in slight anticipation.

**Valentine Hotel, Hollywood California. Follow the old roads until you find the nearest ****Shining**** looking kind of place, and you're there. Good luck.**

Jo sighs; shucks her phone onto the seat next to her and stares blank at the road.

_Valentine Hotel_ and the name rings like a bad taste in her mouth…

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><p>Two months, three weeks, six days, two hours, five minutes and at last count, nine seconds since he's been on his own.<p>

Doesn't care for anyone or anything and can't find the time to feel guilty for that. Gets by whatever ways he can and if that means others don't make it out and he does, then alright…

It's been two days since he's had a case and the _thoughts_ are threatening to drown him; gets a call from Bobby about a hunt in Hollywood that needs looked at for a busy friend, and he's on his way, shiny black car purring across pavement and unmarked roads.

_Valentine Hotel_ and there's this stupid little flick of hope in the back of his mind.


	3. A reason to run away

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural.

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><p><em>I saw a little girl  she screamed and ran away_

Charlotte Gainsbourg.

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><p>The rest stop smells like half-flat Mountain Dew and the way the stove at the Roadhouse did that one summer when a mouse curled up and died in it. Jo's been gettin' the stink eye from the lanky brunette near the vending machines ever since she hopped out of her pickup to take a bathroom break.<p>

"Nice shorts," the brunette says as Jo passes, and the hunter tries her best not to sneer and snip a comment about how the brunette's teeth make her look like a platypus. Jo's gotta piss like a race horse and that means no time for confrontation.

Once in the bathroom, she rushes over to a stall and does her business, happy that she didn't ruin her favorite pair of underwear- they're pink with flowers and the only thing she owns that makes her feel something like a girl anymore- by peeing herself like she did that one time at age seven. In Jo's defense, it had been during an intense game of Hide and Seek with a few visiting hunters' kids and she had the _perfect_ hiding place in an old oak and everyone was looking for her and she just _could not_ abandon post.

It's only when she flushes that Jo notices there's someone else in the bathroom, curses herself for letting her guard down before she moves out of the stall cautiously. Over to the sink to wash her hands with the faucet turned down low.

In the background, she can hear sniffling. Someone's crying, like a little girl and for a moment Jo tenses because she had to deal with a pissed off specter like that on her first solo hunt. It ended with a stay in the nearest hospital and seventy-five stitches. And that's not even counting the fact she ditched out early like a dumbass for a hunt in Columbus that broke the damn stitches open all over again. Driving to the newest nearest hospital was a bitch.

"Hello?" Jo calls, peeks down under the stalls to see a pair of feet a little smaller than hers wedged in ballet flats and colorful socks. "Hey, are you all right?"

More sniffling, and the stall door opens, a head of spiky hair peeking out. "Oh, I did-didn't know anyone else… I'm s-sorry."

Jo blinks, because the girl's about her size, but definitely not her age. "Hey," she says again. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah," the girl says back, wiping her nose on the sleeve of a tattered lace shirt. "I just…"

Jo frowns, watches as the girl's liner stained eyes fall to her shoes. And Jo gets it, because she's been here before. So it's _oh fuck_ after a second's consideration, mutters a small _Christo_ that doesn't go into effect, sets her hand on the girl's shoulder. "Running away, huh?"

For her part, the girl looks startled, confused by Jo's statement. Large green eyes and she stutters, "H-how did you know?"

"Just a hunch," Jo says easily, though she's done this kind of thing enough times herself that it was like a clock striking twelve in her mind about what this girl's up to. And man is she making the fucking right choice, because anyone's who's got a reason to run away's _got a reason to run away_.

"Where ya' headed to?" Jo asks, leans back against the porcelain of one of the sinks and tilts her head to the side, blonde hair falling everywhere because she doesn't do fucking ponytails. Too much like pigtails and those haven't been in the equation since John Winchester walked into a bar and ruined her life.

"Sacramento," the girl says. "I got friends there."

"Need a lift?" Jo asks, lopsided mouth of a smile because she got her jaw all slacked a few hunts ago and refused to take the time to get it set proper, even though momma told her she'd regret it later.

The girl hesitates for a moment. _Mother said not to talk to strangers _kind of hesitance. And then she nods, follows Jo out of the bathroom and past the brunette who's still eyeing Jo like a hawk.

"Got a problem?" Jo asks, all leers and sass and maybe she's just a little bit deadly on the drawl of asking. Maybe she shows that hunter swag a little more than necessary.

And there's recognition in the brunette's eyes that maybe it ain't the smartest idea to get in a fight with a girl who's got scars in the shape of wendigo claws running down her spine. "No," the brunette grumbles after a moment's second thought, though her tone clearly says a hell of a lot otherwise.

Jo laughs, because it isn't the first time. "Didn't think so," and she walks to her pickup where the girl from the bathroom follows her all wide-eyed like maybe she shouldn't have agreed to this; hops in the cab anyways with a Mary Poppins kind of bag Jo's just now noticing, but doesn't really give a fuck about as long as it's got nothin' supernatural, weapon, or sex fiend pending.

"What's your name?" Jo asks, slams her door, starts the ignition, guns it in reverse and swerves onto the interstate like a maniac. After all, she did bribe Ash into being the one to teach her how to drive stick.

"Molly. Molly Chaplin," the girl says. "What's yours?"

Jo hitches it around some kind of mutt of a car, ignores the honk of the horn and speeds like a Bond villain simply because she can. "Jo."

"Isn't that a guy's name?" Molly asks, clutching her bag to her chest for support because there aren't any seatbelts.

"Yeah," Jo grins. "It is."

And it's about ten minutes of silence and waiting before Jo reaches into the glove department, pulls out a bottle of holy water and silver shavings that she hands to Molly, doesn't even look at the girl because Jo knows that Molly knows she expects her to drink it.

"Um… No thank you?" And Jo'll give the girl credit for thinking like any normal smart young girl would, but that shit doesn't fly with a hunter who's gotten her ass kicked twice too many times to want her pride wounded like that again.

So Jo snorts, acts all casual. "I'm not a sex offender or anything. It's just water, Molly, geeze."

For a minute, Molly just stares at the bottle, Jo driving one-handed with her eyes between the girl and the road. "Well… okay." At first she doesn't even bother opening the cap, but one harsh look from Jo and the Molly's got nearly half the bottle downed.

"You're clean," Jo smiles triumphantly, but all it gets is a freaked out look from Molly, who shakes her head and clutches her bag tighter.

"You're kind of weird," is what finally bubble's out of the girl's mouth, and Jo would rather hear _weird_ than _freak with a knife collection _or _wannabe hunter with halfbaked romantic notions _or _little sister school girl with a crush_ so she just shrugs.

"Yeah. I know."

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><p>By the time he makes it to Idaho, there's dark circles under his eyes.<p>

Gets the cheapest motel room around and crashes, face in the pillows and eyes squeezed shut. Maybe if he focuses hard enough, he won't see it. Won't see that day repeating and repeating. _Heat of the Moment_ playing again and again in the back of his mind while he holds Dean and lets his big brother bleed out onto the pavement.

"Damn it," he curses, sits straight up in bed and looks at the fuzzy screen of the television he turned on just for the noise; looks at the bed by the door.

He still gets a double room because it's just instinct and if he really lets the reality crash down it's _just him_ then he'll lose it.

_Yeah, 'cause you haven't already._

Most of the time he wishes he could just get drunk and forget about it, but it's one shot of whiskey and the memory of begging Dean to just kill him; do what Dad said. And if Dean would've just _listened_…

He pulls out his map. The Trickster's tracks imprinted all over the states and lakes and streets. Bobby says he should just give it up, but it's like he _can't just give it up_. It's his _brother_ for Christ's sake.

A sigh, and he flips the map over to a clean side, circles down the directions for _Valentine Hotel_ again and again, the name still grating on his mind.

Looks like another sleepless night, and he's just getting settled on that when there's the sudden crashing pain in his head he thought died with Yellow Eyes. A flash of blonde hair and brown eyes, someone screaming his name over and over.

_Sam, Sam, Sam!_

Hands pulling against his arms, hauling him away from flames and wolves and eyes of milky white. The snicker of a little girl, the splash of fresh blood from a kill on his skin and a lopsided mouth pressed to his. Motel signs flickering and endless highway signs with the purr of the Impala in the background. Wings and flames and sun and moon and _Sam. SamSamSam._

And in the blink of an eye, it's gone. Just him in the motel room, staring at the fuzzy screen of the television.

He packs his things and hits the road.


	4. Dead kind of neighborhood

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural.

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><p><em>I saw somebody who <em>/ _reminded me of you_

Charlotte Gainsbourg.

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><p>Even though she'd rather not admit it, Jo doesn't mind Molly's company.<p>

The past day and a half she's spent with Molly yakking her ear off from the passenger's seat– girl's an insomniac like Jo, go figure– has been some of the most animated hours of her life.

Seems that Molly's got a flare for the dramatics, and that damn Mary Poppin's bag is like the stagehand.

Fifteen hours ago, kid you not, Molly pulled out not only a jar of peanut butter and jelly, but a _loaf of bread_; made herself a pb&j just like that. Of course she offered Jo a bite, but the hunter was a little too wide-eyed to accept the offer, so Molly just kept eating, jabbering on about the time she broke her leg during soccer practice when she was five and how she's been afraid to even go near a soccer field ever since.

"I'm thinking about dying my hair pink when I get to California. What do _you_ think, Jo? Or would that be too outlandish? Then again, it _is_ California… Have you been there before this? I've never made it out of Colorado, so I mean, this is like, _such a big deal_."

When she gets on a roll, the girl doesn't stop. At first neither she nor Jo spoke at all, and then Jo made the mistake of asking Molly what her favorite book is, and it's been nothing but talk since. Jo guesses she's all right with that. It's kind of a nice change from the silence that usually accompanies her on these long drives. And Molly now considers her _cool_ instead of _weird_, which Jo suspects is mostly because she showed Molly how to cheat the vending machines in the last gas station they stopped at to fill up.

"Yeah, I've been here before," Jo says.

She took a tour around Stanford for college; her ACT scores were some of the highest in district so nearly every school wanted her, but she wasn't interested. The Roadhouse was at risk of going under and she craved to be a hunter; she only went for a semester at UN because Momma begged.

Besides, the only reason she's smart is because there's nothin' better to do behind a bar than read; Jo's never wanted to be a scholar for any of the right reasons. Doesn't even bother to pull out the large vocabulary or random facts because in her line of business, knowing too much doesn't get you anywhere but dead.

"Oh my god, really?" Molly asks, peers out the window at the sprawl of skyline and people. "Where?"

"Nowhere important," Jo shrugs, takes the nearest left and tries not to think about the glimpse she's always wondered about. A boy with shaggy brown hair and sad eyes, walked around the school path with his gaze on his feet and his hands in his pockets. She called out to him, a simple _hey_ because she needed directions anyways and he looked like he could use a little social interaction. And he looked at her, some kind of flicker of recognition between the two before he walked away.

Sometimes she thinks it was Sam; heard an argument between him and Dean, Sam saying maybe if he wouldn't have gone off to school– Dean yelling to just shut up about everything already.

She tries to remember every feature of that boy on campus, compare it to Sam. But it gets clouded. Fused with shattered beer bottles and _my daddy shot your daddy in the head_ with a knife brushing her forehead and Sam/not Sam laughing at her in his ethereal beauty and sin.

_The Doors _still makes her skin crawl.

"So… Where exactly are you going _now_?" Molly asks, digs two Snickers bars out of her bag, offers one up to Jo who isn't even questioning it by this point. Free chocolate after all; how the fuck can she complain about that?

"Hollywood," Jo says. "Ghost hunting."

"Like, on one of those tours through a cemetery or haunted hotel?" Molly asks excitedly. "I've always wanted to do that!"

"Yeah," Jo smirks, "something like that."

"Cool," Molly says brilliantly, sits back in her seat and munches on her candy bar. Jo does the same, _mmm_s appreciatively at the chocolate and caramel. God, how long has it been since she's really enjoyed junk food?

"So… Do you have a boyfriend?" Molly asks as the sound of radio static fills the cab.

Jo doesn't answer her for a moment, listens intently to that static like it's God. Or at least the complete opposite. And after a moment, it fades. Jo's shoulders relax a little and she glances at Molly out of the corner of her eye, the girl so focused on digging through that Poppins bag again she barely noticed Jo's odd behavior.

"No," Jo says after a minute. "I don't do boyfriends." Not since college, when there was a boy with a ring and plans and it legitimately scared the _fuck_ out of her.

"Oh," Molly squeaks, glances down at her bare feet in the foot well. She took the flats and socks off a little ways back, rested her feet on the dashboard and produced a bottle of pink polish from the Poppins bag which she used to replace the faded red already on her toenails. "I've never had a boyfriend."

Molly is fifteen. She's awkward and really likes red licorice, scarves, and kids. Her favorite word is _doodle_ and she adores the color black. When she was twelve, she tried nursing a wounded bird back to life but it died in her hands; she cried for three hours. Her mother is a crack addict and her kind-of stepfather molested her for two years before she stabbed him in the shoulder with a screwdriver and ran off. She wants to be an actress or a singer or maybe a vet, and Jo's the only blonde who's ever paid attention to her.

It took Jo sixteen hours to coax _why California?_ out of Molly even though she knew every other goddamn thing about the girl in the first four. And evidently, Molly's off to _be with the love of her life_. Some boy she met online a year ago and talked to over _Skype_– Jo has no idea what _Skype_ is and doesn't plan on finding out– nearly every day before leaving, gave him no explanation and now she's just going to show up in Sacramento and surprise him and they're going to live happily ever after.

One hour after learning this, Jo taught Molly how to punch someone's nose into their brain at the rest stop back in Nevada.

"What about that guy," Jo says. His name is Billy or Blake or Grady or something; Molly was more specific about the fact he fakes a killer English accent and always spouts off random statistics that don't pertain to the situation. Kid sounds like a nerd which makes Jo a little more relieved about _this _situation. "He told you you're the girl he wants to marry someday; I'd say that's a boyfriend."

"Yeah," Molly says, "but we've never _kissed_. You have to _kiss_ to be boyfriend and girlfriend."

_Well_, Jo thinks, blinking. Apparently she's had a lot more boyfriends than she thought.

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><p>Jo realized a while back that Sacramento is a ways away from Hollywood.<p>

She drops Molly off in Bakersfield; parks the pickup just shy of the bus station and gets out to walk Molly up and buy her ticket.

"You don't have to," Molly insists, tries to make Jo put her wallet away but the hunter's hearing none of it. "But you already bought me food, and a pair of sunglasses, and I couldn't–"

"One for Sacramento," Jo says to the teller; the guy gives her a cross look, old eyes and wrinkles. "Nonstop, please."

When the bus arrives, there isn't any kind of big emotional goodbye. Even though Jo knows everything about Molly, Molly doesn't know a damn thing about her. They aren't really friends, well, they _are_, but it isn't like they're ever going to see each other again.

That doesn't stop Jo from giving Molly her number. She has cards, but they're embarrassing– Ash made 'em, so of course they're embarrassing– and she finds Molly's travel map more fitting anyways. "You call me," she says. "For _anything_."

"Okay," Molly says. "I'll…I'll call you later."

And like Jo hasn't heard that one before. "Okay."

Molly picks up the Poppins bag, takes one step toward the bus before she wheels around and crushes herself to Jo. "Thank you."

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><p>When Jo gets back in her pickup, she finds a book on her seat that wasn't there before. <em>The Catcher in the Rye<em>.

How the hell did Molly know it's Jo's favorite?

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><p>She gets to Hollywood by nightfall. Takes the grand tour via back routes and one cheap diner that she orders chocolate cake at while she can still taste it.<p>

Calls Dennis to get a better take on his directions because she gets lost halfway there. "Yeah… uh, you take Lewis and turn onto Grand and-"

"I'm going to kill you for this, Dennis."

She finally gets there though. Some dead kind of neighborhood. Every other building is crumbling to the ground, while those being renovated are covered in bare construction equipment. She wonders if these people know that the buildings aren't the only things they're bringing back…

The _Valentine Hotel_ itself looks like that _Tower of Terror_ ride from Disney. Large a sprawling with orange stucco and that old fashioned kind of awning out front. It's got random Gothic towers all around, sharp angles pointing toward the sky and rushing toward the small slip of forest beyond it. It all sits on a hill so lush and green Jo's afraid to walk on it; afraid the exotic plant life spread here and there will try to swallow her whole.

She parks in the lot, broken down despite the expensive gardening job surrounding it. There's everything from a Bentley to a Ford, construction vans she guesses are here for last minute touchups.

Jo takes the elaborate sidewalk past the flower planters all down the walls, stares up at every single window shrouded in red velvet curtain. She can see the entryway ahead, elaborate and covered by an awning too rich for Jo's eyes to have seen before.

All the angle and curve and point of this place scares her, sends a shiver through her bones. There's towers everywhere, separate buildings that look perfect for slaughterhouse. The sign neoning the name all over is hitched to the middle of the front, the roof so sloped and pitched it wouldn't be able to contain it.

_The Valentine Hotel_ in old Hollywood script that's too mod for this place that looks like something straight out of an Edgar Allen Poe story.

Jo gives a low whistle, for what it's worth.

And it's like, she's so distracted by all this swishy-swishy suave-suave that she's almost to the slope leading to the entryway before she catches it. That black car like death stowed away off to the side, an omen she wasn't one to want.

_Jo, Jo, Jo…_ His voice in her head, not hers.

_You're not Sam._ And the way his bastard of a brother never called but he did, apologized for something he never started and made Jo feel that much guiltier about fearing him for it, never seeing the villain behind the mask in the first place.

_Could've saved him, could've save myself…_

Suddenly she's mad. Fucking _pissed_.

It's _her_ case. What the hell is _he_ doing here?

She storms the rest of the way inside, feels every single knife on her and dignity be damned, she's about ready to fucking use them. She'll cut him up into a million little pieces and–

"Huhm…" she lets out a breath, stares in wide eyes at everything old Hollywood. Marble arches that sect into new places. High leveled halls that look into the lobby. Elaborate furniture in perfect setting and ceilings so high and bright it could make you go blind.

Her eyes travel everywhere, over the concierge desk and old fashioned key boxes behind it. The giant fireplace at the back with chairs all around. The arches that show the elevators, flowers everywhere. Stairs and marble and glass.

"Jo…?"

She's been so busy staring, so in awe that she didn't even hear him creep up. That silent step that totally contradicts his sheer size. It startles her, makes her jump and yelp, wheel around on the offensive until she sees those sad eyes, but this time they're different. All the softness she remembers, gone.

And she sneers, tries to shame him with false bravado and charm. "Well, aren't you about the last person I expected to see?" And it's the completely wrong thing to say and she knows it.

Which is probably why he smirks, so not him, like he's pretending to be Dean and she gets a flash of him laying her out on a bar, brushing her hair away like a lover and she _hates_ him for apologizing.

"Could say the same for you," he says, no longer soft and mellow and calm the way she remembers him talking. Now it's measure, strained, like he hasn't used that pretty, pretty mouth of his in a long time.

Doesn't stop her from laughing, asking, "What are you doing here, Sam?"


	5. The mêlée begins

**A/N: **For Nitefang, because you cured my writer's block, as always. Thank you; I owe you one.

Disclaimer: Kripke owns Supernatural, just another reason I'm so irked by him and his angst…

* * *

><p><em>a woman in a bath  if the cold doesn't kill her money will_

Charlotte Gainsbourg.

* * *

><p>A growl. "This is ridiculous."<p>

A tired sigh. "Yeah, well, that's life darlin'. Everything in life is ridiculous."

The sound of footsteps, scuffling, a door slamming closed. "Oh _please_. You, _of all people_, do not get to go Buddha on me all of a sudden. Give me somethin' I can actually _work with_ here before I stalk down his lanky ass and fill 'im full of rock salt. I swear, I'll do it!"

A beer bottle unhinging from its top, a shovel _crunch_ing through dirt. "Whoa, slow your roll there, kiddo–" a seething sound on the other end at the word _kiddo_– "it's a simple misunderstanding. I don't see why you both just can't work the same case? You've hunted together before; it'll be easier with two of ya' in such a big place."

Shelves rattling as a wall is kicked. "I _don't care_, _damn it_! This is _my_ case! You called _me_ to do it."

The _thud_ of a dead ghoul body being dropped. "Actually, I called _everyone_ to do it; he just happened to show up before I put out the memo that you're handlin' it." Mumbling. "Don't start cursin' at me you little sour mouth. Not my fault that he's got good connections!"

The idea of finding these said _good connections_ and beating the living hell out of them. "Fine. Whatever. He'd just better stay _the fuck_ out of my way."

An audible silence, the tone eerie and serious with the next words. "He's a Winchester, sweetie. You'd better stay the fuck out of his."

The manager of the hotel, Trisha Feldman, is pretty.

Well, pretty in an old granny sort of way. She's tall and delicate; aging lines on her angled features and streaks of gray in her golden hair. If she had to take a guess, Jo would say Trish– as she insisted on being called– used to be a model. Those legs of Trish's go on for miles and miles, even without the red stilettos.

Trish's voice is kind of like wind chimes, rising and lowering in pitch according to the atmosphere. Right now she's speaking tense, the animosity between Sam and Jo palpable even though Sam's on the completely opposite side of the room from where Jo's slinked back against some bookshelves, nibbling on a mint Trish so graciously offered. Jo hasn't brushed her teeth since a little before the rest stop she ran into Molly at back in Odessa, and though she won't ever tell anyone that, she savors the mint like it's her own personal Jesus.

"And what exactly can you tell us about what's been happening here, Trish?" Sam asks, though it isn't anything like what Jo's used to. Sam always had such an, an _empathy_ for the clients. Talking in soft tones and puppy eyes that always made them feel safe, well understood. Now it's just business, to the point.

Jo _hates_ it.

"Anything at all would be useful," Jo quickly throws in, tries to make it sound like this isn't a waste of her time just because it is Sam's.

Trish grimaces, twiddles with a locket around her neck the color of brass. "Well, a lot of things really… I mean, I didn't do much research on the old place, so I didn't even realize… When we first started renovating, a few of the construction workers cleaning up the grime all mysteriously died.

"One fell down the stairs, another got a nail gun to the head. A third got a loose door dropped on his head. There were five others but…"

"Too gruesome," Jo offers, glances to the side only to see the spine for _Antony and Cleopatra_ and get a strange longing to read in the pit of her stomach. "If there were so many deaths, how come you didn't stop renovating?"

Trish shrugs. "There are a lot of accidents in old places like this. And my partner…he was hell bent on having this place running by June. Even if it is only the first three floors, we still have a lot of business."

"So apparently he got his wish," Sam snorts, animosity toward the mysterious partner 'cross the hall that's supposedly too busy to talk to them. He'd been in Trish's office yelling when they were first escorted there after the little trip in the lobby. Something about money and renovations on the top floors. When Sam and Jo had walked in, the gray-haired man simply entitled Barry had stormed out, muttered something that would make a grandma croak as he waddled to his office in a fit.

Trish frowns, bad memories apparent. "Yes. He did… But now it seems that everything is getting worse. There hasn't been any deaths, thank God, but a lot of my staff has been harassed. Many of them go home with cuts and bruises and they have no idea where they got them from. A few have been locked inside the rooms and had to call someone just to get them out. Almost all have heard voices and seen things...

"The reason I was so desperate as to call Dennis though was because one of my maids was thrown down two flights of stairs the other night. She's on life support right now. There was no one anywhere around when it happened, but she was _shoved _according to the detective's report. They said the angle and force at which she descended was not caused by simply falling."

"And you think it was a ghost?" Sam asks.

"Yes. Like I said, there was _no one_ around. She was about ready to go home, and had signed out and everything. And with the other things happening, it just fits... You see, Dennis helped my old roommate and I with a poltergeist haunting our apartment complex a long time ago, and it was just like this. So I thought he'd be able to fix this matter too."

"But he sent us instead," Sam says, expression unreadable. "Sounds like you've got another poltergeist here… Have you done any research on the place _lately_?"

"Yes," Trish says, like she was waiting for the question. "There isn't much… A few deaths here and there, but mainly from old age or drug overdose. Nothing gruesome like is suggested for poltergeist."

"Well, maybe it's just bad energy," Jo pipes up, and Trish grimaces. "Just bad lands or something."

And though he probably thinks she can't, Jo can hear the, "Or something," Sam mumbles, eyes focused and not at the same time as he stares at the many books behind her.

* * *

><p>Jo's never been in a place this swanky before. Sure, the whole <em>Tower of Terror<em> vibe keeps up with the tattered walls and lofty spaces between doors, but she guesses it kind of suits the place. The red stucco and flickering sconces, not so much. Those just mainly creep her out.

Sighing, she slams the door to her room. 310. Right across the hall from Sam.

They'd walked down this way together, left the office right after Trish handed them the keys and said they had access to any place they wanted. At first Jo thought maybe he'd start talking– she remembers Sam hating the uncomfortable silences. But he didn't, just stared straight ahead and let his long legs carry him away from her. And then, just as they reached their rooms, he turned to her.

"Hey Jo?" he asked.

She shivered, didn't like her name on his tongue but she screamed at herself _it wasn't Sam_ before she turned to answer him. "Yeah, Sam?"

"I can handle this one."

"Excuse me?" she asked, cocked her hip to the side and frowned.

"I can get this one; you don't have to stick around. I'm good for it on my own," he said, no emotion.

She sneered. "I can handle myself."

"Arrogant fucker," she mumbles under her breath, drops her newly retrieved duffle– who knew they had legit bell boys to retrieve luggage– on the overelaborate bed. It's too cushiony for her liking. Too clean.

Mumbling a few more insults, she stares around the room getting a feel for the layout in case there's the need of escape. The walls are a deep cream color, red accents all around with a dresser and a flat screen across from the bed. She's got her own table and a little cove of a kitchen that won't be used because she can't cook to save her life. _Maybe I can stash alcohol in the fridge?_ God knows she won't pay for the minibar. There's only one exit beside the main door– a small window on the far wall that won't do any good because she's three stories up.

_Great._

One last glance at everything, and she shakes herself into motion. Strips out of her clothes without further thought and leaves them in a dirty pile at the end of the bed so she can skimmy over to the bathroom and flip on the shower– well, bath-tub, but it's got a showerhead. Mind you, she's still got a knife attached by a chord of leather around her ankle– her dad's.

The hot water is a relief after four days no shower; takes the tangles out of her hair 'cause it's always been pretty fair. She watches the dirt wash down the drain, uses the rather expensive smelling _Valentine Hotel_ shampoo to lather the unruly slight curls and sighs in content. "I could totally get used to this."

And just when the tension is leaving her shoulders, she hears it:

_Clang._

_Clang. Clang. Clang clang clang_.

"Fuck."

She gets out, wraps herself in a fluffy towel and takes the second to grab her knife from where it sits, travels into the room with rivulets drippin' all down her skin. And ducks immediately. One of the knives from the wrack by the cove kitchen's sink digs into the wall right where her face was. She eyes it like it's a person growing a second head before she stands, runs a finger down the blade and nicks herself real good. Lets out a breath as she tugs her towel tighter and glares toward the wrack the weapon came from.

"Listen up, asswipe. I don't care why you're here, who you're haunting, whatever. But _don't_ fucking mess with me when I'm naked. That shit's not going to fly!" Jo calls, attention sharp as she bears her teeth to the room.

And then the mêlée begins.

Pictures rip off the walls. Lamps flicker. Silverware explodes from the drawers, and the rest of the knives follow suit of the first. All aimed at Jo.

She jumps just in time, dodges and dips and swerves but this spirit must be pissed of all belief because just when Jo thinks she's out of the target range, a letter opener comes sailing off the dresser and sinks itself into the side of her left thigh.

On instinct, she screams. Bright sparks of pain as the chords of appliances begin to swirl, one from a lamp headed straight for her throat. There's blood on her hands when she reaches up to fend it off, but then it's got her bound and she trips, drops her daddy's knife and starts to struggle like a caught fish.

"Get off of me! _Get off of me_!" she shouts, lungs wanting to give out between the pitch and the strangulation.

And the only thing she can think is that she doesn't want to die like this because by now she's realized her towel's gone and they're going to find her body naked with her mascara dripping and her hair knarrled. What a way to go.

"_Help_!" she screams, like she's never screamed before because she _doesn't want to die_. Not only because she doesn't want to be found naked, but she knows it's not her time yet. This isn't the blaze of glory she's going to go down swingin' with. "_Help_!"

And just like that he comes slamming through the door, an avenging angel with the Devil in his eyes as he charges for her, cuts the chord in half and pulls her up from the ground, tucks her against him, prone and dripping murky crimson onto the floor as he shouts out something in Latin, something she knows but it's dingy behind the black spots in her senses.

It takes Sam a minute or two to finish the spell, but when he's done, everything stops. Time stops. And then it all crashes to floor.

"You all right?" he asks, stares around the crash site instead of at her as she nods against the fabric of his t-shirt. He's got one strong arm around her, hand splayed at her hip and gripped tight like he's afraid to let go, but then it's like he knows what she's thinking and loosens it.

"Yeah. Thanks." And then she realizes _the fabric of his t-shirt_ and _one strong arm around her_ and the stone that is Sam Winchester pressed to her flesh. Memories of a dark bar and an iron grip on her wrists with him grinding against her from behind.

She jumps away, grabs a scraggled sheet off the bed and holds it to her person like she's been caught sticking her hand in the cookie jar. "I'm guessin' you heard me?"

"Yeah," Sam says, glances down at his feet but doesn't blush like she expected him to. The old Sam used to blush at just the innuendo of sex, not to mention a woman naked in front of him. Jo always liked that innocence in him and kind of misses it.

"What'd you do to set it off?" he suddenly asks, glances down at the blood leaking across her skin and seeping through the sheet from the letter opener. It still stings like a bitch but she's had worse and it didn't hit anywhere serious.

"Took a shower…?" she shrugs, licks her lips with a nervous habit she's trying to quit. "Just walked out and things started flyin'. Wanted to kill me while I was still in the life of luxury."

Sam snorts. "Knew it."

Jo looks up at him, sways a little from the bright lights behind his head as she asks, "Knew what?" because why the hell would he know expensive inanimate objects wanted to kill her? She's heard he has _visions_, or some shit, but she's also heard they're gone.

Sam looks her straight-on, gives her something new to know because this wasn't a vision. This was experience. "That we aren't dealing with a poltergeist. We're dealing with a witch."


	6. Casing till dawn

**A/N:** Thank you to my beta, _Nitefang_. And also thank you to all of my readers for your patience and reviews.

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural.

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><p><em>people like you<em>

Charlotte Gainsbourg.

* * *

><p>Barry is not a patient man. When Barry wants things done, they should be done <em>immediately<em>. Which is why Barry is very upset that the hired staff that washes the sheets is so behind schedule. According to Barry's plans, the fourth floor should be opened by Wednesday. It's Sunday, and there are no bed linens in sight.

"This is _outlandish_," Barry snarls, palms pressed flat to the shiny wooden top of his desk. Everything in Barry's office is polished as silver; clean as a whistle. Not a pencil out of place.

The small maid on the other side of the desk quivers, her tiny hands folded in her lap. "I am sorry, sir. We are trying very much to finish." Her accent is thick, laced with heritage and fear that Barry hones in on.

"You had better finish them _by tomorrow_, or I won't hesitate to call customs," Barry says, tone suddenly calm and reserved.

The maid gasps. "Sir, _please_!"

"What use are you to me if you can't do this simple task? Get it done, and there will be nothing to worry about. Now get out; I have a conference call in five minutes."

The maid scurries away, out the door as quiet as a mouse.

Barry settles back into the plush leather of his desk chair; runs a hand through the silver strands of his hair, shuffles through the payment papers on his desk. The conference call is to try and get a larger loan from the bank so that they can renovate the pool out back, and Barry will have to lie through his teeth to receive the funding. It's his strong suit, so the money's as good as his already.

An adjustment of his tie, and Barry picks up the phone prepared to dial. But just as Barry's fingers reach the number pad, he feels a chill run down his spine. An exhale of breath leaves a puffy white mist in the air, and before Barry can ask just what the hell is going on, he begins to scream.

* * *

><p>Jo's up the instant she hears Sam clambering down the hall. She knows it's Sam by the wide gait, the preferred step in his right foot.<p>

A moment to shake the sleep away and she's moving, a stabbing pain in her leg where she got stabbed and an itch on her neck where she got strangled.

After Sam announced that their poltergeist hunt had turned into a witch hunt, he asked if she needed help patching up. That was about the exact moment that Jo realized Sam had saved her. Another Winchester had saved her. All gratitude toward him was gone after that; she told him she could manage and shoved him out the door. A few homemade stitches, one call to house cleaning, and a moment to wash the blood off, and she passed out.

Now she's up again. Slides on a pair of cotton pajama bottoms careful around bloody bandages and ties her hair up in a ponytail without even thinking about what the hairstyle should mean to her as she slips into her boots. The pale light coming through the curtains is enough to tell her it's morning— new dawn, new day.

She grabs a gun from the bottom of her duffle and shoves it into the waistband of her pajama bottoms. Tucks her room key into her left boot and weasels her way into the hall, eyes on Sam who's just makin' it to the elevator.

"Wait up!" she calls out, rushes down after him and ignores the pulse in her stab wound at her hurried limp of a run.

Surprisingly, Sam keeps a hand on the parted doors for her, lets her walk inside all casual with a lift of her eyebrows for greeting. As soon as the doors are closed, they take opposite sides of the elevator.

"So where ya' headed?" Jo asks, itches the rough red lines 'round her neck. Sam watches, his brow scrunched in this Hopelessly Sam kind of expression that she's learned long before.

And for a moment he doesn't answer her; makes her uncomfortable under his gaze and just as she's shifting he says, "Barry's dead."

"Oh," Jo says flatly, because for first impressions Barry sure made a shitty one and she really doesn't care he's dead. Cares she let him get dead, but doesn't care he is.

"Trish called. Found him earlier. Cops are all over the scene; guess he got his spine torn out. Blood everywhere…" Sam shrugs, doesn't bother him a bit. Jo guesses he's trying to make her chicken about this, but he didn't go with her on a hunt back in Springfield where there was a pagan god with a preference for stealing children and eating them one limb at a time. Spines ripped out are nothing to her.

"Think we could slip in on the action?" she asks, licks her lips and it probably looks flirtatious and so chastises herself. She never did this around Dean– nervous habit, she wasn't nervous around him– but she does around Sam. Especially a lot that night in Duluth. Sure, he's one beautiful terror of a man, but she ain't looking to get in the sack with someone who tied her to a pole and cooed about her daddy's death, and she definitely ain't accidentally conveying she wants him or something stupid just because she's skitterish.

For his part, Sam looks like he hasn't even noticed. Probably hasn't. Shakes his head at her voiced question, crosses his arms over his chest and she notices that he hasn't changed clothes. Was he up all night, like he was with her back in Philly? Dean never knew, but they were casing till dawn. Didn't really talk much aside from the bastard that locked her in a crypt that smelled like Ash after he holed up in his room for a couple of days, but there were a few non-related subjects.

* * *

><p><em>A sigh, the slap of a manila folder against a table. "Why would you choose this, Jo? I don't get it. You could be anything you wanted, but <em>this_?"_

_"You _wouldn't_ get it." Stubbornness laced with an unnatural want not to say; feels wrong admitting secrets._

_An intense look of hazel eyes and a worry so deep it's surprising. "Try me."_

_A cave-in. "I do this for my dad. To kill everything that killed him."_

_An unnatural silence, then the shift of a body moving closer. "Revenge?" breathed like a lover's caress._

_A nod, "Yeah," and an urge to tell a companion everything, a feeling of knowing this companion that turns out wrong when he isn't himself. But it's an urge anyways, even if it never is acted upon._

* * *

><p>She'd told Dean the same thing the next day, about her motive; a little bit of a cleaner version, but she figured if she admitted it to Sam, may as well admit it to his brother. The two numbnuts practically worked on the same wave-length anyways; Dean'd find out sooner or later.<p>

"You hungry?" Sam asks, breaks her memories and she realizes that she must've been staring into space like an idiot.

And usually she doesn't eat right when she gets up, but her stomach's calling for nourishment all of a sudden, so she nods. "Yeah. Starving."

"There's a continental in the lobby…"

"Whoa, real food," she jokes, gives him a smile just for the hell of it, but Sam can't seem to return it.

They spend the two hours eating as much as an army could, and lurking around the hotel to waste time. At first Jo figured he wouldn't keep her company after the elevator, but when she sits down with a plate full of waffles and bacon and fruit and bagels and jelly and syrup and eggs, Sam joins her. They've got a table by a window that looks into the side yard of the _Valentine Hotel_ and can watch the sun rise.

"You really gonna consume all of that?" Sam asks, tips his head to her plate like it's a ridiculous notion.

Jo smirks. "I bet you lunch I can go for seconds."

"Deal."

Twenty minutes later and Jo's telling him to find directions to the nearest steakhouse.

They head back to Barry's office together after they watch the cops leave through the lobby, stomachs filled and a "catch-up" on their latest hunts. Sam begins lingering nearer and nearer with each cold spot they feel, or piece of caution tape they pass. It makes her a little uneasy, the protective edge to his stare when he glances down at her. At first she just thinks it's the part of him that's used to being on a team coming out, and then she notices the way he's got a hand hovered halfway between them, ready to reach out at any moment and grab her to tuck her back into those strong arms like a damsel in distress.

And it _pisses her off_.

"You asshole!" It shocks Sam enough that he wheels around on her with a look asking whether or not she's crazy, and Jo takes it as initiative to keep going. "Just because I fuck up doesn't mean I'm _inept_, damn it! I hunt _on my own _and make it just fine. The only time I get in even just a lick of trouble is when you guys are around to save my ass. But that doesn't mean you _should_!

"Jo—" he tries.

"_Don't_." She warns, bears her teeth and takes up walking to their destination again. "I'm not helpless, Sam. You don't need to protect me just because you feel you owe it to Dean."

In an instant, she's slammed against the wall, Sam's body pressed up along her threateningly like a knife. _My daddy shot your daddy in the head._ She begins to panic, barely hears Sam's gritted, "Don't talk about him!" as she gasps for breath and squirms. Maybe that demon didn't think she was conscious when it touched her while she was laid out against the bar, but she was. She felt all of it, and the imprint of Sam is forever familiar to her and she _can't stand it_. He's as cold now as he was then and everything in her starts to scream.

"Get off of me! _Get off of me!_" Just like last night and just like Duluth.

And Sam gets it. He backs up immediately, lets her right herself, pant it out against palms pressed to her face. But he isn't sorry for it. She can tell by the set of his shoulders and the ice in his pretty hazel eyes.

"Don't fucking _touch me _again," she growls.

All false semblance of companionship they had before is gone.

When they finally make it to Barry's office, everyone is cleared out. The interim between investigation and clean up. Jo goes straight for the blood while Sam lingers around the entrance. They've come to terms with the fact they're working this case together and they hate one another and they aren't talking about what just happened, _ever_.

Jo's okay with that.

One look at the blood and Jo wants to vomit her heap of a breakfast. Spines ripped out she can handle, yeah, but that doesn't mean it doesn't still make her stomach churn. There's mangled bits of flesh and muscle and bone on the floor, and the stench is overwhelmingly dead.

"There's leftover bone. Spine must've splintered when something forced it out… Even a witch couldn't do that," she calls over her shoulder.

"Hex bag in a potted plant," Sam calls back. "Whoever's doing this has manipulation over some pretty angry spirits. We had a case like this on a movie set not too far away. Hellraisers?"

"That stupid shit?" Jo asks, forgets her hate of him for the moment and laughs. "You had to meet those people?"

"Yeah," Sam sighs. "Hollywood really is overrated."

* * *

><p>The moment Jo watches Sam disappear into his room for the night, she grabs a shotgun and goes exploring.<p>

They found another hex bag inside Barry's office under his desk, some serious hoodoo inside of it that worried Jo to death because she's only seen stuff that strong on the pages of a book. When everything was said and done, they were pretty much empty handed. Headed to the lounge so Sam could pick up the Wi-Fi and researched the place like it was God. And apparently the big man upstairs does work in mysterious ways because they found absolutely nothing all over again.

An EMF sweep caught zilch. A call to a guy named Bobby Singer that Jo remembers her mom mentioning a few times got zilch times five. They were on their own in this, and Jo figured Sam was keeping her in safe venues when they were together.

She goes back to the hall where Barry's office is. By now the police have packed up for the rest of the night and the casing is on postponed time. Jo shimmies against walls and shadows anyways.

There's a staff lounge that she checks out first. Looks over every nook and cranny and finds nothing suspicious of witchcraft. At one point a maid on nightshift walks in on her, eyes wide and hands on her hips.

"Oh… This isn't the gym locker room?" Jo asks.

"There's no gym here."

"Right." And she's gone in a limp of blonde hair and leather jacket that used to be her dad's.

She looks through a couple of more rooms after that. Laundry room which creeps her out 'cause it's industrial with billowing sheets and she hates billowing sheets. Stock room which she snags a Snickers bar– she blames the new craving on Molly– from and eats on the way to the janitor's closet. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Just as she's about to give up though, something catches her eye. There's light coming from the crack under the door of Trish's office, but Jo watched her go home ten hours earlier after trying to comfort the distraught woman over the death of Barry.

Creeping close, Jo pushes the door open silent as she can and peers in.

_Fuck._

Trish is knelt in front of a demonic altar, cuts her hand open, and spills her blood into a goblet that looks like something from _Merlin_. Jo loves that show and all, but their drinking ware is fucking creepy.

"Just tell me what I have to do, Master. Anything to bring you back…" There's candles all around casting eerie dark and a book open next to Trish that looks too sinister to be good. The lights in the hall are flickering and Jo feels ice on her back and she's genuinely scared when she hears Trish's pronounced, "Yes. Sam Winchester is here… Yes, Master, I will."

And Jo's heard enough already. Time to go tell on little miss supermodel to the sasquatch upstairs. And so she gives off a slow exhale as she shuts the door, sprints for everything she's worth to the elevator and presses the door-open button a gazillion times before it gives.

Jo knows about Sam, more than just those vision thingies. Charmed Ash into giving her every little piece of info on that boy as possible. She knows about the fire and the demon and the powers and the war. She knows about the death sentence and the deal and the army. She knows that when demonic altars and Sam's name are in the same mix, shit's gotten serious.

"Damn it, Winchester!" she mumbles under her breath. "What'd you do? Make your own deal? Idiot!"

She stabs her finger into her floor's key again, wants to rush rush rush so she can get to Sam that much quicker and question his stupid ass till kingdom come as to why Trish's _Master_ wants him here.

But just as the number's switching from two to three, the elevator stops. Shuts down. Goes dark.

"Oh, crap," Jo whispers, exhales and watches as her breath turns into a cloud of white.


	7. Killing in cold blood

**A/N:** To Nitefang: Yes it had to be elevators. Those bitches are scary.

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

><p><em>it happens to me more and more these days<em>

Charlotte Gainsbourg.

* * *

><p>Jo's watched a lot of action movies in her life. It isn't enough to get in on a fight herself; she likes to watch 'em too, fictional or not. One of her favorites was <em>Die Hard<em>. Serve her up a side of Bruce Willis any time, and she'll be your best friend for life— not kidding. Especially now, when she uses all her know-how about elevator shafts to raise up her shotgun and, _wham_, out pops the service compartment in the elevator's roof.

"See ya' later, skippy," she shouts, uses her gun as a kind of bar to raise herself up and onto the top of the frozen box of metal.

Surprisingly, the spirit doesn't follow. It's kind of anticlimactic, considering Jo's just spent the last five minutes of her life firing off random rounds of rock salt at a specter dressed from head to toe in construction wear. It was enough time to guess that Trish was the source of all those "mysterious" deaths during the renovations. Needed some pawns on the board to play with.

"Stupid bitch," Jo mutters, takes one little peep around her and figures that this old lift must be incased in iron, the reason the hoodoo minion didn't come after her. She wonders how it could ever join her in the elevator itself if that's the case, but who knows with black magic anymore. That shit's too out there for anyone to take a guess at its limitations.

Another sweep-through and she finds the latter, unsteady rungs that could take her all the way to the fifteenth floor no problem, provided she's skinny enough. And yeah, Jo's pretty tiny in stature, but she eats _all the time_, and she doesn't have a little bit of plush stomach right near her navel for nothing; hey, even a thousand crunches can't get rid of it. So this is about the time that Jo starts praying.

Strapping her shotgun over her shoulder— yes, she's got it on a strap; not her fault most hunters are too dumb to think of something as simple— she gets herself up on the toes of her boots, flexes her calves and takes a steady leap.

No, she'll never admit she screams like a little girl before she finally grasps hold of one of the metal bars like it's salvation.

"This is not what I signed up for," she mumbles to herself, bites into the flesh of her lip as she climbs. She's not so much afraid of heights, as she is the fact she's being chased by one pissed-off witch while trying to scale aforementioned heights.

When she reaches the doors to the third floor is when she finally comes to a standstill; rolls her eyes at her own stupidity and grips the ladder tight with one hand as she moves the other to the ledge, tries to get a good hold but as soon as she does, everything seems to come to life again.

Jo curses when the elevator rapidly starts flying up her way, the idea of becoming a smear on the wall not in her best interest. Acting on instinct, she jumps down onto the top of it again before it crushes her, wobbles a little as she almost falls off; tucks and roles and ends up falling ass-first inside of the elevator again.

"Ow!"

And first thing she knows, there's the hoodoo minion going at her again with teeth snapping. She thinks quick; pulls out a knife from up her sleeve and slashes a nice line down the thing's face. It howls, disappears in a swirl of smoke and Jo guesses she's got about ten seconds before it's back. So up she goes again, tumbles around a bit as the elevator jerks and shakes. At first she thinks it'll stop, but as she watches the doors to each floor go by, she guesses that it probably won't.

And it's like door six flies past and she's considering that maybe this is it, this is how she's going to die, and, yeah, she's going to blame it on Sam. Stupid idiot always getting himself into trouble and now she's getting dragged into—

_"And talk is cheap when the story's good…"_

"…the hell?" Jo answers the call, gives a tiny, "Hello?" as door seven passes her by.

"Jo?"

Balking, Jo shifts her weight off of her injured leg, glances around like this is some kind of joke. "Molly?"

"Hey! Is this a bad time? I mean, you said to call when I got here, or got settled or something… Which I did! And, oh my god, Jo, you should meet Vince—"

"Molly—"

"—he's the greatest. And _so cute_. And guess what?

"Molly—"

"We _kissed_! That's what! Oh my god. He's nineteen, did I tell you that? Yeah, I told you that. But anyways, he has his own apartment, and I'm staying there with him, and at night, we just cuddle! Nothing else. It's so _great_ and—"

"_Molly_! Listen to me! This is great. This is really great and I'm happy for you, but right now, I'm about ready to— oh, it doesn't matter. I'm just in big trouble, and I don't really have time to— shit!"

The elevator jerks to a sudden stop. By now, Jo's at the fifteenth floor. For a moment she doesn't know what to do with this, before finally she ignores Molly calling her name on the other end of the phone; closes it and stuffs it into her pocket as she glances down into the elevator.

The doors are open.

Without even thinking about it, Jo dives. She hits the elevator's floor the moment it decides to plummet; jumps the rest of the way onto the fifteenth floor landing and breathes out a sigh of relief. Winces when she hears the audible _crash_ as the elevator hits the bottom in a heap of scrap metal.

After a second's rest, she dials Molly back, tells her she'll call her in three hours, and if not, then to call her mom and tell her Jo said she went down swinging. It's only when she's sprinting down the hall from a new hoodoo minion that Jo realizes she never gave Molly her mom's number.

* * *

><p>Jo makes it to the third floor with a broken index finger, three cuts down the side of her face, and a new stab wound in her hip. The top floors are still under renovation, weapons all around for the hoodoo minions to go at her with.<p>

Her stumbling, bloody limp to Sam's door is almost relieving. The hoodoo minions dropped her case in the stairwell, and she's so out of breath she thinks she could die. So when she pounds on Sam's door and he opens it, sleepy eyes and rested shoulders, she's pretty damn pissed.

"Jo…?"

"We need to talk."

* * *

><p>She sits on his bed in just her tank top and boy shorts, takes the offered glass of water he hands her and gulps it down with appreciation. "Thanks."<p>

"So…Trish is the witch?" Sam asks, but it's like he really isn't all that surprised about it. Then again, his emotions are so stagnant now that Jo shouldn't really be that all that surprised herself.

"Yeah, and apparently she wants you to be her warlock. Or at least this _master_ of hers does…kinky." She ignores Sam's raised eyebrows, glances down at the bandage he helped with on her hip instead. It's already soaked through.

After a minute or two of silence, Sam finally sighs. "And you said she was at a demonic alter? Talking to a cup of blood?"

"Goblet," Jo corrects, tries to wiggle her index finger in its splint but all she comes up with is a splintering pain. "Stupid bitch."

"Did she say anything else? The demon's name?"

Jo shakes her head, takes another sip of the water. "Nope. Just said she wanted to bring it back; called it 'master' and said that you were here and she 'would.' Would _what_, I don't know… Better tighten that belt of yours, pretty boy."

Sam's mouth goes flat, shifts all uncomfortable at her innuendo and it makes Jo smile just a little, hints of the old Sam shinin' through. "And you're sure she's the one that caused all of the deaths?"

"As sure as can be… So what do you think? Get rid of whatever she's using to control these things?"

Sam's quiet another minute, before finally he says, "Or kill her."

Jo spits out the drink of water she was trying to gulp down, coughs a little as she stares at him. "_What_?"

"As long as she's around, so is the demon she's talking to. Obviously she's trying to bring it back, like you said. That'd be stupid of us to let that happen."

"But _kill her_? She's human, Sam. Provided, one puckered bitch, but still _human_. Just because she's made some bad choices doesn't mean we should _kill her_." Jo settles Sam with her gaze, knows he knows about what other hunters say about him; kill him and end it at the start. But she's so against that, so against killing in cold blood, and she remembers that Sam was at one point too.

"It's just a thought," he says, but she can tell it's more than that. "What about you, what do you think?"

"Well, we could always—"

Before she can ever get her ideas across, the lights go out. Jo blinks, tries to adjust to the lack of vision but it's startled by the sounds. The _clatter_ and _clang_. And she remembers the ladder, reaches out and grabs Sam's t-shirt collar just as an alarm clock comes sailing her way.

Without hesitance, Sam throws her around his lap, the clock hitting his shoulder with enough force to make him grunt. She ignores her panicked instincts at his touch as a picture frame flies their way, _pushes_ so they go back against the bed, roll to the floor with a _thud_, Sam underneath her.

"I am getting sick of this!" Jo shouts, retrieves her dad's knife from around her ankle and rolls off of Sam into a crouch.

"I don't think it was a coincidence she called your friend when he was busy," Sam says just as Jo catches sight of one of the hoodoo minions creeping out of the closet.

And that's creepy enough to the point that she's picking Sam up by the back of his t-shirt, hysteric as she shoves him toward the door that she opens and kicks him through into the hall. He starts running as soon as she does, not even the least bit embarrassed she's only got her skivvies on because she's too scared to care.

"Where are we going?" Sam asks, bare feet _thud_ding against the carpet like her own.

It takes her a second to come up with the answer, but then Jo says, "Off the property," because that's what she should have said when she interrupted his sleep an hour earlier. Away from this place is their best bet on getting a plan down.

Both of them head for the stairwell, tripping and stumbling as items begin to fly at them. Jo's starting to wonder what the other guests are thinking about all the commotion tonight. Then again, there aren't really that many here in the first place, what with Barry's death they all got scared and left, and as far as she knows the few that did stay could all be dead right now anyways...

When they make it to the stairwell, she has to hack at a particularly gruesome hoodoo that's blocking the way with her knife, stab its already bloody eyes. It disappears with a howl and Sam slams open the door, has the uncanny ability to take two steps at a time. Jo has to hop to keep up with him, and even then Sam's still waiting on landings to grab her hand and virtually propel her forwards.

"I think she's got the whole place cursed," Jo says, panting.

Sam nods, too out of breath to really reply as they make it to the door that leads into the lobby. Both of them kick it open, dip and dodge as every which thing splays at them. Through a marble arch they go, into the seating area where the fire's spiked-up in the hearth.

Sam and she make it to the front doors at the same time, try to shove 'em open but it's no use. Turning to one another, eyes wide, they start running straight toward the nearest window. And if she can help it, Jo'll let the sasquatch go first because she's got one too many wounds to stand from the night already.

But she never gets the chance.

Just as they're reaching the bay by the bellhop station, a vase comes off its stand and shatters itself right into the back of Sam's skull. Jo screams, drops with him to the floor and finds all the blood on her hands just from touching his hair.

"You stupid _whore_!" Jo calls out, tries to lug Sam up but he won't budge, which means she won't budge either because she won't leave anyone behind, even if it is Sam's heavy, annoying ass. "Come on, bitch! Stop having your lackeys do it for ya'! Face me already!"

"My pleasure." Jo turns just in time to watch Trish swing a blunt object at her, can't even dodge it before she's knocked out cold.

* * *

><p>Sometimes when she dreams, she dreams about Duluth.<p>

The whole _my daddy shot your daddy in the head_ and a knife caressing at her hair. A lot of the time, it's Sam who's the one torturing her, touching her. But other times, it's Dean. Black eyes and a voice like sex, he grabs at her, paws at her.

"This is what you wanted, isn't it?" he asks, honey dripping against gravel as he slides his hand along her chest, down over the top of her breast and lower. "Come on, Jo. You know you like it."

But the thing is, she doesn't.

"Stop it," she whimpers. "Stop."

He doesn't; smirks instead as he leans forward to bite at her shoulder blade. "Oh, but sweetheart, we're just getting started…"

* * *

><p>Jo jolts awake with her arms tied behind her back. At first she begins to panic, tries to listen sharp and even when she doesn't hear <em>The Doors<em> playing, she still wants to cry. But she doesn't, instead she gets her wits about her and glances around.

Everything is blurry, metal and billowing and blurry.

"Damn it," she mumbles, realizes she's ties to a vent in the laundry room all too early for her tastes. "You had to pick the room with the billowing sheets."

"Naturally."

Jo looks up in time to find Trish _clack_ing her way, but gets bypassed at last second and follows Trish's path to find Sam tied up a ways away from her, still out cold. And for a second there's a spark in Jo that says _ha_ because he's tied up too, but then she shakes it off and tries to see how tight her ropes are.

"So tell me, Joanna, what are your feelings for Sam?" Trish picks Sam's face up by the chin, studies him like he's on display.

Jo rolls her eyes. "I think he's bitchy."

Trish laughs, a pretty model laugh as she twists to look Jo in the eye. "No. You don't. You think he's scary."

"Kinda hard not to when he's that tall," Jo says, expression straight. "I mean, even your legs couldn't match his."

"Joanna, Joanna. All that false bravado just doesn't work on us."

"_Us_?" Jo asks. "You got an invisible twin now?"

"No."

"Oh, yeah. That _master_ of yours. Who is he, Marylyn Manson?" Jo snorts at her own joke, bites her tongue to keep from smiling and looks down.

Trish sighs, strokes a hand down her pristine dress suit and shakes her head with a statement that has Jo snapping to attention. "One better. His name is Azazel, but I think you and Sam know him better as…Yellow Eyes?"


	8. Things she gets

**A/N: **Thank you to my beta Nitefang, who has not only stuck with me through this train-wreck of a fic, but has also made me laugh more in one summer than I have in my life.

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

><p><em>your life was at an end<em>

Charlotte Gainsbourg.

* * *

><p>"Hey, Ash?"<p>

"Yeah, Jojo?"

"Think you could tell me a little bit more about this demon? I mean, you know, just for purely recreational purposes."

Ash looks at her sideways, this little kind of pinched expression he always gets when he knows that she's up to something. "Recreational purposes, huh?"

"Well yeah," Jo says, gives him her best take at innocence. "I mean, bar's all cleared out. Nothin' else to do… Mom's on a run for more beer, so I can't bother her. Figure I may as well bother you."

She glances at the computer monitors scattered throughout his room. Keypads crusted with Cheeto fingerprints and stale beer. Random bits of articles and supernatural activity everywhere. There's a mural of copies of John Winchester's journal strung up on the wall by his bed. A coil of wires filling the entire south corner. And it doesn't strike her as whacko that she never gets tired of this place, even if it does smell like pot and Ash's "super special" cologne that he practically bathes in.

"Alright, recreational purposes. Since it has absolutely nothing to do with your fascination of the Winchesters and their shot guns, nice car, and pretty boy smiles then, sure. I'll tell ya'." He smirks at her then, a kind of leer that Ash always seems to make look friendly. Which is probably why she returns it, kisses him on the cheek for extra insurance and makes him laugh.

They end up sitting there for over three hours. Ash tells her everything, from the fire to Blackwater. Provided there are bits and pieces missing. Pages torn from the journal; sketchy details around the lines of her dad. But when it comes down to it, Jo gets it. She gets what John was after, what the brother's have told Ash since they found the journal themselves. She gets that this is a lot more than anyone and anything and that all these little dots on Ash's computer monitors aren't something to mess with.

And the worst part, and she knows it's the worst part: Jo wants in. She wants to kill this son of a bitch because it's made so many families suffer like her family suffered. And she can't live knowing that's happening.

But of course she never gets her chance; loses sight of the bigger picture and gets caught up in the want to mean something. Make her daddy proud. She falls for the man just like him, hopes just for a moment he'll let her be a part of this life he's kept so bottled up inside. But he doesn't, and it's because of that family of his that she understands so well, that her daddy's dead. And so she hides. Asks Ash if it's true, and when his silence is confirmed by Sam months later, she's done with all this shit.

She gets her act together; realizes she isn't invincible and this isn't all it's cracked up to be. She gets the shit beat of her. She gets herself ripped open from side to side. She gets her entire life turned sideways.

And yet she keeps going, picks up the pieces and moves on.

But thing is, it was always there in the back of her mind. Even when she lost sight of it– the fact that this demon, the Winchesters themselves are bigger than all of these little worries of hers– it was still lingering in her thoughts on the backwave . Even when the thing was supposed to be dead, she still knew it wasn't over. If something so bad was gone, then shouldn't everything else bad be gone too?

But they never disappeared. _Monsters_ don't just go away on their own; you have to make them.

* * *

><p>Jo figures she's where she is now because of that— tied to a vent with an insane woman preaching on and on about things she's already learned, things she gets, because the <em>monsters<em> don't just vanish that easily. And maybe it was stupid to get caught, stupid to worry about the little things instead of the bigger picture. But that was one mistake; Jo isn't stupid when it comes down to it, when it matters. She might be a little naive, a little bit of a romantic with half-baked notions, a school girl, a freak with a knife collection— but she isn't stupid.

Because stupid people don't know how to shimmy out of their ropes while they keep the bad guy talking.

It's apparent she's missing her dad's knife. After all, she's got nothing on but her underwear and there aren't many places to hide it in that kind of attire. But that doesn't mean she's defenseless; there's such a thing as locking and unlocking your shoulders just right, your wrists just right so that the ropes slip, slide, and _snap_, they're gone.

She works on 'em quick, a harsh yank as Trish keeps talking, walking, saying everything she really doesn't need to because Jo already knows.

And then Trish strikes a nerve, sets Jo on edge and makes her pause for just a moment. "Tell me, Joanna. Why is it that you're so afraid of Sam over here? The way you look at him, tremble at him, it's like you feel _guilty_ for it."

Gritting her teeth, Jo weasels her shoulder out of socket without the giveaway _pop_, something Dennis taught her when she was eight and her mother kicked his ass for later. "I'd rather not tell all my secrets to a demon worshiping bitch, thanks."

Trish laughs, makes a _tsk_ing sound that reminds Jo of a squirrel. "Was it romantic issues?" Trish asks, kneels down to run fingers across the shape of Sam's forehead, his cheek. Jo really wishes he'd wake up and head butt her. "Were you with one brother and moved to another?"

"No," Jo says simply, starts to wriggle the ropes around the ends of her palms.

"Are you scared of what he's destined for? Feel bad about that because he's your friend?"

Again, Jo's ready to say _no_ as easy as shooting the breeze, but then Trish's comment strikes her as odd. If the demon's dead, if Dean shot it with the Colt, something that means it's not supposed to come back, then what could Sam be destined for? Maybe it makes a little sense Trish can talk to the thing— if it's dead, it's back in Hell after all, right? But that's the thing, it's _in Hell_. How can it control Sam now?

Unless… _she wants to bring it back._

And without missing a beat, Jo sneers. "Shut up!" because, hey, being blonde and tiny doesn't get you everything, believe it or not. You've also got to be one hell of an actress.

"Oh, no, did I find a weak spot?" Trish asks, smiles and slinks away from Sam, more toward Jo who's down to the fact of rearranging her posture to keep the ropes from tangling when she tries to slide 'em off the rest of the way.

"You really shouldn't feel all that bad about it though, Jo. He is very dangerous after all… All of that power flowing through his veins." Trish runs a hand down Jo's neck, nails digging into her own veins to get the point across.

_Just go away so I can get untied already_, Jo wants to say, but instead she listens, patient and calm. May as well get the down low while she can, even if she does want to beat the ever loving crap out of this woman.

"It's only natural Azazel would want him, the number one of all his psychic kids. Did you know he's practically one of the only left? All of the weaklings, the ones who couldn't even qualify to compete, your friends, your _hunters_ are picking them off. But not Sam.

"He's so strong. He's so…dangerous. It's only natural to be afraid of him, to want him gone. And without big brother around there's nothing stopping people from trying, really…I know it isn't stopping us."

Jo inhales sharp, looks Trish in the eye who just gives her a girlish shrug. "You didn't think there wouldn't need to be sacrifice to get Azazel back, now did you? But the real truth is, Jo—" Trish combs Jo's hair away from her face, leans in close to whisper, "—you really should be afraid of Sam, because once Azazel is a part of him, he's going to _kill us all_."

When Trish pulls back, she smiles. "Well, you all anyways. I've been ensured my life and eternal youth."

"Oh, really?" Jo smiles.

"Yes," Trish chirps. "Really."

"Don't be so sure about that." Jo's quick with it when she grabs the woman around the neck, slams her head forwards and does what she was wanting Sam to do.

The _crack_ makes Jo think that it really should have hurt, but it doesn't, and that's probably not a good thing considering the force was so great Trish drops to the ground instantly, half-in-half-out of consciousness as Jo scrambles to her feet, trips and slides and gets about two feet before she's back on the ground.

And maybe that's what really sets her off— the fact that someone would go as low to grab her 'round the ankle just to make her fall. Or maybe it's that this bitch just doesn't know when to quit. Well, whatever it is, it's enough to make Jo go a little crazy.

She flips herself over, sees Trish grinning at her in a mental kind of way. And for a second, Jo does the same— then she kicks, _hard_. Breaks Trish's nose on impact and laughs at the blood.

But it's Trish's turn after that, lashes out and claws her nails into Jo's calf. When she pulls away, Jo can all but hear her flesh tearing. The sting is blinding, makes her shout just a little as she pulls herself away, tries to get up but Trish is already heaving herself over, in Jo's breathing space as the woman bitch slaps her.

_Seriously?_ Jo lashes out, lands a solid jab to Trish's waist, makes her fall right next to Jo who scrabbles atop her, starts yanking and ripping hair because even though it's a bitch move, she knows it hurts and she's happy about that.

"You wretched whore!" Trish screams, claws a good mark or two down Jo's face.

"Seriously?" Jo asks aloud this time at the feel of the cuts, stunned a moment before she decides to return the favor by ripping Trish's hair out by the handful. Fuck respecting your elders.

And Trish starts screaming about then, reaches into her pristine little dress suit and pulls out some kind of cross filled with blood. Jo curses, hates those charms because they're always so messy. Grunting, she knocks it out of Trish's hands.

"Would you just black out already?" she asks, gets herself straggled across Trish's chest and grabs the woman by her neck. "I mean, really," she accentuates her words with a harsh slam of Trish's head into the concrete, "I don't mind the minions. The minions I can handle." _Slam_. "But some arrogant—" _slam_ "—bitch—" _slam_ "—that never—" _slam_ "—_**shuts up**_?" _SLAM _"No thanks."

When she gets up, it's in a daze. Her head is swimming, mind clouded by blood loss and the feel of Trish's hair between her fingertips. Jo blinks, stares around the room and startles as she realizes it's filled with phantoms. Minions waiting to take orders. But they're not minions; they're not willing, they're controlled. They're creatures that were _people_ once that are being forced against their will.

Jo reaches down, grabs the cross from around the unconscious, bleeding Trish's neck and _tugs_. Smiles when it breaks and looks at it a moment before she throws it on the ground, watches it shatter into a million pieces. "Checkmate, bitch."

* * *

><p>Things are kind of anticlimactic after that. The phantoms don't attack Trish like Jo was hoping they would. They just fade, the commotion in the room fading with them. Trish doesn't get up with a want to extract revenge, just lies there bloody on the ground with drool coming out of her mouth. Sam doesn't wake up on his own and thank Jo to the infinites for saving him, just sits there unconscious until Jo gets up enough energy to walk over and smack him across the face real good.<p>

He wakes instantly, jolts, and finds the source of the forming welt on his cheek before he breathes out her name like a sigh of relief.

And she smiles at that.

"What happened? Are you all right?" His eyes are sharp on her wounds, on the red that stains the lines of her skin.

She rubs him off. "I'm fine, I'm fine. Nothing happened… Well, actually a lot happened, but you were too sleepy-eyed to take notice."

"Trish—"

"Defeated," Jo smiles. "I gave her the old Harvelle smack-down. All the trapped souls are saved, and I'm pretty sure cleansing the hotel will be easy with Miss Model Pants too busy bleeding from the face to stop us. I'm sure everyone left 'll leave after being rudely awoken last night anyways."

"But you— you—"

"I told you, Sam. I'm not helpless."

And it's a moment worth of silence before Sam finally relents, "No, I guess you're not."

At that, Jo makes sure to grin extra wide. "Thank you."

Another moment of silence before Sam slumps, looks down at the floor as he says, "Thanks— for saving everyone, I mean."

"You don't have to thank me, Sam," Jo sighs, crouches down to untie his ropes. "But you _can_ help me find my knife. Oh, and kill this bitch. I mean, yeah, I kicked her ass and all, but that doesn't do it for me."

"What made you change your mind about that?" Sam asks, tries to look behind him to see her but he can't, which Jo finds kind of amusing just by the way his shoulders hunch all curious and boyish in such an old Sam kind of way.

So for a moment she can't answer him, laughs a little instead. Maybe not _all_ of their false semblance of companionship is gone. "She gloated."

"Yeah, that can get kind of monotone and very— Jo, what happened to Trish?"

"What are you talking about? She's lying on the ground right over there with her face knocked in."

"Um, no. She's not."

_What?_

But that'd be just her luck, wouldn't it? So she sighs, glances to the side and sure enough, Trish has vanished. Yet, the only thing Jo can think to say to that is, "The badassery had to happen and fail while I was in my underwear, didn't it?"


	9. Won't be the last time

**A/N:** Well, this is the epilogue everyone. I'd like to thank _Nitefang_ for her beta skills, and I'd also like to thank all of you for sticking with this fic. You're the greatest.

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural.

* * *

><p><em>but I am dead and I am perfectly content<em>

Charlotte Gainsbourg.

* * *

><p>It takes them two days, three hours, twenty minutes, and at last count, ten seconds to figure out Trish is a lost cause– well, sort of.<p>

They search every inch of the _Valentine Hotel_ from top to bottom. Every hexbag this side of Hollywood is destroyed, and the moment the last one is singed, the entire hotel begins to fall apart. "Black magic," Sam explains. "It was the only thing holding this disaster zone together."

Jo doesn't find her dad's knife, which pisses her off and kinda makes her want to cry at the same time. Even Sam looks like he feels bad about that.

The police investigation on Barry's murder is filed as a cold case. There's no need for further evidence when the fact remains no human could rip someone's spine out. Every patron that was in the hotel besides Sam and Jo goes home unscathed. Jo envies them as they walk by, rich and fat and blissful while she's a mangled mess of flesh and emotions.

"Socialites," she sneers, earns herself an eyebrow raise from Sam who gets it but doesn't get it and she wonders where he became used to that kind of thing. For a moment she remembers Stanford, but then she shakes it off and asks him if he's up for a beer.

Instead of a bar, they sit on the back of the Impala. Neither one has slept during the search for Trish, so they're both bone tired and look like shit. Jo thinks that Sam looks a little better than she does though– maybe because he doesn't have long hair to take care of. For a moment she considers cutting all of hers off and dying the remaining stubble purple. At least then no one could call her blondie anymore.

"So where will you go after this?" she asks him.

He shrugs, looks down at his beer– the one she remembers him liking, unlike the brand she gave him in Duluth and he drank anyways– and sighs. "Go after the Trickster again, I guess… The trail's been cold ever since the Mystery Spot."

Jo nods; figured that's what he would say in the first place, 'cause, despite her better judgment, she didn't tell him a damn thing Trish said while he was knocked out. Sam's got enough on his plate with the loss of Dean and all, and scrabbling after this _Trickster_ guy– why add this kind of shit into the mix? Besides, Jo's going after Trish the extra mile, she knows that for sure. Even though the bitch is long gone, Harvelle's are the best trackers this side of the Earth, and Jo'll be damned if she lets little miss _he'll give me eternal youth _get away.

"What about you?" Sam asks, nurses the neck of his beer and stares cross-eyed at the label when he asks. Jo figures it's just a courtesy gesture. He's been giving her a lot of those since she saved his ass back in that billowing sheets laundry room.

For a moment, her guilt tells her to tell him the truth, but like the million other times it's done that, she ignores it. He couldn't find her dad's knife either, anyways. "Maybe Paris."

And at that, Sam laughs. It's soft and barely there, but it's still a laugh and for a while she thought he wasn't capable of that anymore. Sure, it's only been four days, but four days is enough to know just how deep Dean's loss hit the youngest Winchester. She might not _know_ Sam, but she knows him a lit'le. And she figures it's like losing his dad all over again, but Sam was a lot closer with Dean, so that just has to make it a million times worse.

"Wow, I didn't know I missed that," Jo says, 'cause even though she doesn't _know_ Sam the way she thought she did before Duluth, and only knows him a lit'le, she's never had any troubles with him. He was always soft and sweet and innocent, totally the opposite of all the rumors she's heard about him. His laugh was nice– _is _nice– and his presence was nice too. Even though Dean had been her center of attention, she knew that Sam was always lingering close behind.

And after she says what she says, Sam blinks, his eyebrows knit together in that Hopelessly Sam expression she remembers from so long ago. "It's been a while," he says, and she thinks about the day she got the call that Dean died bloody in his little brother's arms after a mugging gone wrong in a foggy parking lot. She won't admit to Sam how much she hurt over that. Just like she knows he won't admit to her that the _it's been a while_ is over the same matter.

"You know, I'm still kind of scared of you."

"I don't remember much, about Duluth I mean…" She's glad that he followed her abrupt change in topic, 'cause this heading down dangerous paths talking about the guy neither one of them wants to talk about thing just wouldn't work for them. "I hurt you?"

"Just a knot on the forehead," Jo shrugs tapping the old wound, brushing it off. "You tried to apologize already and everything, but I think the reason I hung up was because I knew you had nothing to be sorry for."

"Not according to everyone else," he says bitterly, and she knows he knows about the myths hunters say. "Meg just…I don't think she's ever gonna go away."

By _Meg_, she guesses he means the demon. "She hasn't been back yet," Jo ventures, only to get a sharp kind of look that stings.

And then Sam's expression softens and he sighs again. "It could have been her, the one Trish was talking to."

"Or it could be a completely new demon, y'know?" She's lying through her teeth and she's gonna go to Hell, she just knows it.

"Yeah, maybe," Sam says.

They finish their beers quietly after that, share an awkward glance and then stand 'cause they know this little encounter is over. Off to their separate lives. First stop for Jo after she blood-hounds her ass off is Molly's new place. When she'd called the younger girl back, Molly had chirped over Jo's wellbeing and then insisted upon a visit. Sam was standing there, so Jo agreed just to get the girl to shut up.

"So… I guess I'll see you around then?" Sam asks.

"Yeah," Jo agrees. "But… Don't be a stranger anymore, alright? You save my ass, I save your ass. It seems to work for us." She thinks about it a second, and then hands him a card out of her bag that has her number scribbled on it in weird fonts with her name in pictured words. Ash's idea of a gag-gift two birthdays ago, the kind of card she wouldn't give Molly 'cause it's embarrassing, but she guesses it really doesn't matter with Sam. "Call me sometime?"

"Okay."

"Okay."

And that's it.

He gets in the Impala, and she steps away into a vacant parking space. Glances at the _Valentine Hotel_ that's falling in on itself pitifully, and then at that shiny black car and Sam. He gives her a sort of nod of goodbye, pulls out of the space, and doesn't look back as he drives away.

Somehow she knows this won't be the last time she's seeing him, but that thought doesn't really sit as well as she'd like it to.

And so she stares after him a moment, laughs just a little and then shakes it off. Wonders over to her pickup and locks herself inside. Digs around until she finds her cell phone. The familiar number she dials only rings a good two seconds, and then it's a gruff, "Hello?" from a voice hard to forget.

"Rufus?" she asks.

"Oh, well if it isn't the littlest Harvelle," the older hunter greets, and Jo can just hear the smile in his voice.

And so she smiles too. "I was wondering if you could help me out? What all do you know about a yellow-eyed demon named Azazel?"

Rufus gives a low whistle, and in return he asks, "Well, that depends little Harvelle… What all do you know about the Apocalypse?"

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><p>end part one words against skies<p>

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><p><strong>Edit: part two,<em> Lock, Shock, and Barrel<em>, is now posted.**


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